Get Involved
Join us in creating quilts to raise climate change awareness.
Get Involved
Whether you are an experienced quilter or have no experience, you can participate in the Climate Change Quilt. Pledge to get on our email list, make your quilt, and then submit your quilt to be posted in our Galley. Once we have at least 1,200 pledges, we will begin organizing a national demonstration!
Ways to Contribute
Quilting Tips
Step 1: Decide on a theme.
Step 2: Make a pattern. You can often find icons or clip art online and print out pictures to use as patterns. For quilting, simpler is better. Words as well as images work. See the Gallery for examples.
Step 3: Trace your pattern onto the wrong side of some upcycled fabric.
Step 4: Cut out your pattern.
Step 5: Hand or machine sew your pattern pieces onto a background. If you don't know how to sew, reach out to someone who does and get them involved!
As an individual: Design and sew your own quilt. Quilts should be "bed-sized" and, to minimize weight and resource use, should not have any batting (that middle layer that gives quilts their thickness).
As an organization: Mobilize students and community members by inviting them to create quilt segments. We recommend 18" x 24". These segments can be combined in 3 x 3 matrix to make a whole quilt. See the Gallery for examples.
No matter if you are an individual or organization, let us know you are intending to make a quilt by Pledging. Then, Submit your quilt so we can post in our Gallery. Post pictures of your quilt online and get ready to participate in local, regional, and national demonstrations!
What do you mean by upcycled fabric?
Any fabric that was not purchased new. This can be old clothes, sheets, pillows, curtains, etc. You can donate your own, buy them at thrift stores. Another good source of fabric is Facebook Marketplace. Often crafters and others have scraps of material that they are no longer using. It's OK if this material has not been previously used. We are just asking that folks don't go out and buy new textiles from a retailer for this project.
Why upcycled fabric? Estimates are that only 10% of donated clothing is actually resold at thrift stores. The rest is landfilled, recycled, or dumped on overseas markets, destroyed local clothing industries. Additionally, there are enough clothes currently on the planet to clothe the next six generations. Finally, the textile industry is a significant contributor to climate change and uses 100 – 150 liters of water for every kilogram of textile produced.
Finished your Quilt?
Once you have finished your quilt, email the following to climatechangequilt@gmail.com:
Your name
Title of your quilt
Participants (Names of all who would like to be credited for the design and construction of the quilt)
Description (This can include why you chose the theme, links to websites about the topic shown, poetry about the quilt, etc. Please limit to 500 words.)